Adventures in Remuddling

A house needs constant maintenance. And it wears on you. So when you can get a fix done in a few minutes (see disclaimer at end of post), it’s a relief.

One of our cabinets in the butler’s pantry had this sticky latch.

You can see in the picture that it does not spring out the way it is supposed to (it’s stuck in the open position). It also gets stuck the other way, when the latch is closed and it practically takes a wrench to open it.

A few months ago, we bought a very similar spare latch from a “fancy” hardware store (fortunately it was on sale) and we quickly stored it in the basement.

Well it only took about 5 minutes to uninstall the old latch and install the new latch in the same spot. Luckily the screw holes were in the exact same spots.

It opens when it should, and closes when it should. No more sticky latch. Woohoo!

*DISCLAIMER:
Ok, so 5 minutes is actually a bit misleading. Because from start to finish of the project, it actually took about 20 minutes. I had to go to the basement and find the hardware that I bought months ago. Fortunately I had somewhat organized the basement a few weeks ago (but we won’t include that amount of time). I had to find the right screwdriver and bits for the drill gun. Of course I had to examine the old part to see if it is fixable and re-usable for some other project. Then I had to fiddle with the digital camera. Flash, no flash, stop trying to take a movie I just want to take a picture (it’s an older digital camera). I spent more time on the camera than the actual fix (about 5-10 minutes). And then I have to admire my work (at least 2 minutes minimum, for larger projects up to 30 minutes - seriously, for real). And I did not even add the time looking for the part (which I found in a bargain bin when I wasn’t even looking for it). And what about the time spent writing this post about this fix (at least another 30 minutes).

So you see, even though this was a 5-minute fix, it actually took me at least 2+ hours to work on it.